This new presentation examines the seemingly ever-deepening complexity of designing for our medium today—a complexity that has driven some longtime web designers I know to declare that web design has become “too hard,” or that “the fun has gone out of it”—and asks what our traditions of designing with web standards can teach us about crafting web experiences for a multi-device, mobile-first world.

Given that my original (unpublished) title for Designing With Web Standards was going to be Forward Compatibility—and given that Forward Compatibility is not so different in concept from today’s phrase, Future-Friendly—I’m guessing that structured, semantically marked-up content, progressive enhancement, and the separation of style from structure and behavior still have a huge role to play in today’s day-to-day web design work.

Oh, dear, I hope that wasn’t a spoiler.

I look forward to sharing these ideas with you in greater detail at An Event Apart. Now celebrating our tenth year of bringing great ideas to our community, and creating a space where the smartest folks in web design and development can meet, mingle, bond, network, and learn together. Follow @aneventapart for show announcements, links to useful web resources, and free giveaways on the 10th of every month in 2016. (This month’s giveaway, ten beautiful fleece comforters monogrammed with the A Decade Apart logo, went to ten lucky winners on February 10th. Keep watching the skies.)

Front-end devs, An Event Apart is hiring.

AN EVENT APART, the design conference for people who make websites, seeks a freelance, part-time, front-end developer to work with our web designer, creative director, and project manager on ongoing design and UX improvements to our site at aneventapart.com.

You have a mastery of HTML, CSS (including Flexbox), and JavaScript. You’re a thinker who cares about good user experience and knows that the smallest design details matter. Progressive enhancement is your bread; mobile-first responsive design is your butter. Sweating web performance details is your idea of Saturday night; arguing the semantics of blockquote, your idea of Heaven.

On Web Performance

GET READY for Lara Hogan, author of Designing For Performance, as she shares pretty much about everything you’ll need to know to design optimally performant front-end web experiences. It’s one of twelve essential sessions that make An Event Apart Austin 2015 the Southwest’s don’t-miss web design and development event of 2015.

Web Design Essentials: Resilience

RESILIENCE: BUILDING a Robust Web That Lasts by Jeremy Keith. One of twelve hours of essential content at An Event Apart Austin 2015. But if you plan to attend, grab your ticket now. Early bird discount pricing ends Monday, August 10.

Co-Design, Not Redesign, by Kevin M. Hoffman – An Event Apart Video

MOVE from the nightmare of design by committee to the joys of design collaboration.

In this 60-minute video captured live at An Event Apart Orlando: Special Edition, Kevin M. Hoffman explains how service design thinking, lean approaches to user experience, and co-design processes offer an alternative to the usual (expensive) design project frustrations, and deliver experiences to delight your users.

Screen Time: An Event Apart Video by Luke Wroblewski

FULL-LENGTH FRIDAY is here again! Enjoy another great 60-minute presentation ℅ An Event Apart, the design conference for people who make websites:

In this 60-minute video captured live at An Event Apart Orlando: Special Edition, designer, entrepreneur, and author Luke Wroblewski takes us deep into what today’s world of multiple, simultaneous screen use means for web and interaction designers.

Next Generation CSS Layout With Rachel Andrew

SINCE the early days of the web, designers have been trying to lay out web pages using grid systems. Likewise, almost every CSS framework attempts to implement some kind of grid system, using floats and often leaning on preprocessors.

The CSS Grid Layout module brings us a native CSS Grid system for the first time—a grid system that does not rely on document source order, and can create complex layouts which are easily redefined with media queries.

In Rachel Andrews’s “CSS Grid Layout” session at An Event Apart Boston 2015, by following along with practical examples, you’ll learn how Grid works, and how it can be used to implement modern layouts and responsive designs.

Pick Up Hicks

Jon Hicks is a Graphic Designer based in Oxfordshire, UK. He runs Hicksdesign with his wife Leigh and is most widely known for his work on the Firefox, Mailchimp, and Shopify logos, as well as recent projects such as the Skype emoticon redesign. He also quite literally wrote the book on Icons: The Icon Handbook for Five Simple Steps Publishing.